NEW YORK — In normal circumstances, the New York Rangers losing to a quality Carolina Hurricanes team wouldn’t be too big a deal, especially after a productive 3-1-0 road trip out west. But New York has yet to win a home game this season, and a banged-up Carolina club was playing three rookie defensemen. A win — or at least a complete effort — felt necessary Tuesday at Madison Square Garden.
Instead the Rangers failed to capitalize on a quality start and lost 3-0.They are now 0-5-1 at home, tying the 1943-44 and 1950-51 teams for longest home winless streak to start the season in franchise history, according to NHL Stats.
“These guys are human,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “They care a lot about what’s going on. Of course we want to be a team that prides itself on being good at home and being stingy at home and making this a tough place for people to play.”
“No one wants to win at home more than we do right now,” Mika Zibanejad added.
Sullivan thought the team had a strong first period and looked decent in the second, but he saw his players start to press in the third. Zibanejad said “maybe frustration and other emotions kind of got to us” in the period. He thought that, while pushing for offense, the team perhaps deviated from working together as a group of five skaters. New York finished with only one shot on net in the frame.
“We’re doing a lot of the right things early, getting our looks, and they don’t go in,” Adam Fox said. “I think maybe we’re deviating away from that as the game goes on and trying to force things a little more. That’s not the recipe for success.”
The Rangers finished the night with 39.86 percent of the five-on-five expected goal share, their lowest mark of the season. They also had a 21:18 stretch without a shot in the second half of the game.
“It’s just not acceptable at home to not get the job done at the end of the day, whether you play well or not,” captain J.T. Miller said.
Fortunately for New York, it leads the league with six road wins. The Rangers’ 6-6-2 record has dug them a bit of a hole — they are worst in the East by point percentage — but is far from insurmountable this early. To climb out, though, the Rangers will need to find a way to play better at home.
Here are 10 other observations from the game.
1. Speaking at practice Monday, Miller stressed the need for New York to have a strong start against Carolina. The team responded out of the gate, leading 13-3 in shots through the first 12 minutes and generating multiple high-danger looks. Defensively, Vladislav Gavrikov made a nice play to break up a Jesperi Kotkeniemi pass on a Hurricanes two-on-one, but then he slashed Seth Jarvis shortly after.
That became a turning point. Nikolaj Ehlers scored his first goal with the Hurricanes on the power play, and Carolina dominated the end of the period. The Canes led 11-2 in shots after the Gavrikov penalty.
“Obviously they get the goal, so it becomes a little bit deflating, but five-on-five I thought the first two periods were good,” Zibanejad said. “Then we’re down 2-0. It’s human nature to get frustrated.”
FLY’S FIRST AS A HURRICANE 🚨 pic.twitter.com/hTmRPW7LnX
— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) November 5, 2025
2. Ehlers’ goal came in part thanks to Seth Jarvis camping in front of Igor Shesterkin’s net. Sean Walker scored in the second period, and that goal came because Bradly Nadeau and Mark Jankowski provided traffic in front of Shesterkin. Sullivan cited the net-front battle as one of the differences in the game, and Miller mentioned it, too.
“When you look around the league and you watch how goals are scored around the league, there’s a fair amount of goals that are being scored with that type of a net presence,” Sullivan said. “Your ability to win the net fronts at both ends of the rink is an important element of it.”
3. The Hurricanes were undermanned against the Rangers. Key defensemen K’Andre Miller, Jaccob Slavin and Shayne Gostisbehere were all out, as were depth forwards Eric Robinson and William Carrier. They were also starting for Pyotr Kochetkov for the first time this year. He’d missed the start of the season with a lower-body injury but didn’t look rusty against the Rangers, making 25 saves. He’s the fourth goalie to shut out the Rangers at Madison Square Garden this year.
New York certainly tried to take advantage of the Hurricanes’ three rookie defensemen early. The Rangers worked around them for early chances, the best of which came early in the first period. Joel Nystrom, playing his sixth NHL game, cheated too far toward J.T. Miller, who passed to Artemi Panarin wide open in front of the net. Kochetkov made the save.
4. Speaking of Panarin, he has zero points in his past six games. He has only seven points in 13 games on the year, and four of those came in one game against the Montreal Canadiens. Hunting for offense at home, the Rangers need more from him.
5. The Will Cuylle-Noah Laba-Alexis Lafrenière line had a decent night. In 7:46 with them on the ice at five-on-five, the Rangers had 55 percent of the expected goal share, according to Natural Stat Trick. Laba had a good look off a Matthew Robertson rebound, but was stonewalled by Kochetkov.
6. The Rangers’ power play remains a source of concern. After a zero-for-three night, it’s now four-for-36 on the season, the worst success rate in the league (11.1 percent).
“Power plays are difference-makers,” Fox said. “Even if you’re not scoring, you want to get momentum. We’ve done that on a few power plays, but then — similar to five-on-five — we get a little frustrated and we start doing things differently.”
The Rangers had nine shots in their power plays and multiple good looks. Alexis Lafrenière and J.T. Miller found themselves alone in front of the net in the first and second periods, respectively, but neither was able to elevate their shot and beat Kochetkov.
“We have to find a way to put the puck in the net,” Mika Zibanejad said after the game. (Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
“We have to find a way to put the puck in the net,” Zibanejad said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of something like this before in terms of getting looks and not scoring. It’s frustrating.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to control whether the puck goes in the net, but what you can control is your ability to generate quality opportunities,” Sullivan added. “We have felt to this point that they’ve been generating those. At some point maybe we need to make some adjustments, and we’ll certainly do that.”
7. J.T. Miller told reporters multiple times postgame that he needs to be better for the Rangers.
“It starts with myself and the leadership group,” he said. “This is where we need to dig deep and carry the load a little and raise our own expectations for ourselves; not just, ‘We like what we’re doing and we’re getting looks.’ It’s not really cute anymore. It’s been 14 games, and we’re not executing by capitalizing on our chances.”
8. Aside from replacing a hurt Urho Vaakanainen with Matthew Robertson on Tuesday, Sullivan avoided changing his lineup after a successful run of play in western Canada and Seattle. Perhaps he’ll shake it up now that the team has lost. That could mean Vincent Trocheck re-entering the lineup if he’s healthy, or perhaps Sullivan considers giving recent call-up Jaroslav Chmelar a chance to make his NHL debut. Chmelar was a healthy scratch against Carolina.
9. Asked before the game about the state of the Rangers-Hurricanes rivalry, Sebastian Aho told reporters, “Both of us have had good teams over the years and good battles. You need playoff series to build any kind of rivalry. Obviously I love this building, coming here. It’s electric.”
10. K’Andre Miller’s lower-body injury prevented him from playing against his former team, but he went through morning skate with Carolina and appears to be nearing a return. He spoke to reporters afterwards about his appreciation for his five years in New York, as well as why he believes there’s still more to his game to unlock with the Hurricanes.